Winnie Madikizela-Mandela dies at 81

South African anti-apartheid activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died at the age of 81 after "a long illness," a family spokesperson said Monday. As the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, who was the first democratically elected president of South Africa, Madikizela-Mandela was known as "the Mother of the Nation." Her reputation was severely tarnished later by allegations that she controlled a deadly vigilante group in the 1980s. The Mandelas' 1992 divorce made her even more controversial in the eyes of some South Africans, but she held onto the support of many hardline black nationalists for the rest of her life. In a 1996 American University speech, she recalled: "I learned to deal with the police ... to be tough ... to survive."

Source: The Guardian, The Washington Post